PSA: Games are maintained by volunteers

[Tisaac]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the price hasn't changed much since being acquiied by Asmodee.

Everyone loves to pick on big companies, but BGA has remained very much the same, even as inflation has raised prices of practically everything else.

Well, they don't have a big staff to pay because unpaid developers are doing so much of the work.

Volonteers are doing a lot of work, sure. But how much value exactly is this work adding to BGA ? Hard to say with precision.
All the popular games are now always done by freelance devs so if volonteer dev is working on something, it's more likely to be a niche game, and thus won't attract a lot of new players, which is the main source of revenue for BGA (actually, only the premium would mater).
What I am trying to say is that probably BGA could nowadays run without any volonteers, maybe with less new titles each year, maybe with some extra cost if hiring translator, but that would probably still be something financially doable.
Obviously that's not the mentality of BGA and I love that the site is gathering us as a community, but keep in mind that BGA also brings great value for the volonteers : it offers a framework that allows to "easily" add new games, while handling all the licensing part, the lobby, the servers, the exposure of the players pool of the whole website, rewarding with premium membership and sometimes IRL boardgames gift.
To sum things up, I wouldn't state that BGA is making money out of volonteers' work, it's more nuanced than that.

To go back to the original topic, I would agree that from the player's perspective, it's not obvious at all that BGA and game developpers are not the same thing and it would be great that more information were displayed about that on a game page. (was it done by a freelance or volonteer ? is it still actively maintained ? ...)

[Kayvon]

Sure, usually developed by publisher-paid freelancers, but maintained by volunteers. I realize the distinction isn't obvious for many people.

Tisaac, you've developed a ton of games. Do you still maintain them after they've been released for several months? If you do, it's almost certainly a volunteer effort. It is for me, anyway.

This week lone, I've processed dozens of bug reports from various games released over a year ago. It's entirely volunteer at this point. (Most reports turn out to be rules misunderstandings -- I wish they would just ask in the forums first.)

[yodamus]

To kayvon. You just said you worked on bugs. Many of which were rules misunderstanding. You say you wished the players would have asked on the forums instead. Main reason why they don't. I know from personnal experience, it could takes weeks before an answer from a bga employee if any at all. I am sure most players that use the forum to try and improve the site would love to see more input from bga. Quickly. Not just from other players

[Kayvon]

Yodamus, I disagree. When it comes to rules misunderstandings, all it takes it a post in the appropriate game's forums. Those rules questions are usually answered in mere hours, but sometimes up to two days.

You don't need a BGA employee to answer a rules question, nor would you expect BGA employees to know all the rules to every game. Fortunately, game enthusiasts step in to answer rules questions when people can't find the answer in (or can't be bothered to read) the rulebook.

[yodamus]

OK. I guess I have to blame myself for asking questions in the discussion area of forum which does not answer fast. . Evidently going to the specific game and asking there would be better. My bad. Thanks for info.

[Kayvon]

You're far from the first to overlook the game forum. The general discussions is for site-level issues. Lots of good discussion there (here!), but the individual game forums are where the individual fans are.

You'll be impressed with how quickly you get a response there.

[Tisaac]

Sure, usually developed by publisher-paid freelancers, but maintained by volunteers. I realize the distinction isn't obvious for many people.

Tisaac, you've developed a ton of games. Do you still maintain them after they've been released for several months? If you do, it's almost certainly a volunteer effort. It is for me, anyway.

This week lone, I've processed dozens of bug reports from various games released over a year ago. It's entirely volunteer at this point. (Most reports turn out to be rules misunderstandings -- I wish they would just ask in the forums first.)

I agree that there is a gray area for paid developpment : on one hand you are supposed to deliver a game without bug but on the other hand bug-free software is just irrealistic in general. That brings up the question of maintaining games for a freelance dev. Usually, most of the contract I saw include a duration of around 3 months during which you are suppose to actively solve bugs. So in theory after 3 months, you can just drop off.
I have done so for couple games, either because there were quite stable anyway, or just because I considered my job here done and let people jump in to improve the game if they want to (I still get the emails though). I still actively maintain only couple of games (ArkNova taking up 90% of my time), and that could be considered as volonteer work indeed, but it's not even that easy because some new content get added regularly so I could only consider part of next work on this game.

[ufm]

OK. I guess I have to blame myself for asking questions in the discussion area of forum which does not answer fast. . Evidently going to the specific game and asking there would be better. My bad. Thanks for info.

You don't have to ask questions in BGA forum, you can do so elsewhere (like BGG) as well.

[Kayvon]

BGG, reddit, probably others. All good resources.

For BGA game support, I would recommend the BGA forums first, especially if you're worried that the issue might be an implementation bug. Everyone here uses BGA already. I occasionally check all game forums for games I've developed and provide support/fixes, but I don't closely follow off-site forums.